Chris Jordan

Award-winning photographic artist Chris Jordan compares himself to a guy at a party who points out the bloody rhinoceros in the room.

Jordan’s large-scale photographs attempt to evoke the magnitude of large-scale environmental and cultural problems, from mountains of garbage generated by U.S. consumerism to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Jordan, the National Geographic international eco-ambassador for Earth Day 2008, spoke at SMU on Jan. 27 as part of the 2008-09 Tate Distinguished Lecture Series. While he answered student questions about his work, he told them he couldn’t offer solutions to the unsettling cultural issues he photographs. Instead, Jordan said it’s his hope his photos prompt people to talk about the subject matter.

“Artists are just allowed to raise the issue,” Jordan said. “That’s the only opinion I have – we should be talking about it.” Read more under the link.

(Right, Chris Jordan speaks at the Turner Construction/Wachovia Student Forum on the day of his Tate Distinguished Lecture. Photo by Jake Dean.)

Photographer and environmental activist Chris Jordan will discuss his experiences documenting the hidden costs of consumerism and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina in SMU’s 2008-09 Tate Distinguished Lecture Series Jan. 27. The lecture takes place at 8 p.m. in McFarlin Auditorium.

Jordan rose to fame through his large-scale photographs that explore the impact of disposable mass culture. His most recent series, Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, depicts statistics such as the number of cell phones retired each day (420,000) and the number of trees cut yearly to make paper for junk mail (100 million).